Community Trick-or-Treat

We really love our town, especially at Halloween. Each year all the stores and businesses buy loads of candy and have a community trick-or-treat on the main street. They buy lots of candy on their own and deck themselves and/or their store fronts out in decorations... this year we saw some mad scientist, a ghoulish monster, and a hippie mayor with a decked out VW bus. Can it get any better than that?? We had a really good time, and all but one of the kids could make it. We had siblings, friends, Moms & Dads... what a great time.

My little Fireman

Always a Princess!!

See... what can I tell ya... the things they do for the kids!!!

Friends!!

Old Friends!!

Seeing friends we don't get to see every day.

Hey, I ain't monkeying around here.... where's my candy!!!

Group Shot

I love living in such a wonderful community!!!

Halloween Anticipation

Pumpkins, Water, Books

Being the week before Halloween, I decided to put out some great activities for the kids to do. First we added a pumpkin washing station. I bought 5 little gourd pumpkins and set them out with a basin, scrubber, towel, and water cup. The kids enjoyed getting their water, washing and then drying the pumpkins. We had to help the little ones a little bit bringing the water from the sink (unfortunately the sink is a ways away from the playroom) and emptying the basin when they were through. The preschoolers did the whole job on their own though.

I set out the black beans and Halloween objects in the sensory table. I love the contrast in color in this sensory bin. The kids love it too. We are really working on keeping the sensory materials IN the sensory table. The little ones have no concept of their own space and will always hold their cup over the outside of the bin to fill it. So, the sound of beans bouncing on the floor is a constant in the playroom today.

We also made pumpkin spice play dough. I took this photo of the Princess getting ready to help me knead the dough, which she did. I have no clue what happened that I couldn't get a photo of her actually kneading the dough though :) It seems something is always distracting me.

Here are my friends playing with the completed dough!! They loved the smell and texture. The spice I used didn't totally dissolve so they could feel the little bitty spices in the dough. Also, I tried to make the dough orange... that didn't happen. Princess and I put to much of the spice in and it turned into an orangey brown. They didn't seem to mind.

I put out some fun Halloween books (our favorite is the 5 Little Pumpkins book) in our reading corner too. The kids had fun looking at them and "reading" them to each other. I enjoyed watching the "big" kids with the little ones. They get very excited to think they are teaching the little ones something. Especially these two guys, who happen to have older siblings at home and are almost never the ones to get to do things faster, better or first. Another reason I love the multi-aged learning environment.

Halloween

tRicK or TrEAt

Out local Main Street has a Trick or Treat day, this year the day before Halloween. It was a lot of fun for the kids to get ready for the real thing the next day. I give the businesses a lot of credit for taking time out of their day and spending all that money on candy for all these children. They really had a great time.

We got to see a lot of our friends and neighbors and the local ice cream shop even gave away free ice cream until 5pm. What a great idea!! What a GREAT day!!!

Jack O'Lantern Snack

Today we decided to have Jack O'Lantern Snack... We just cut up our oranges and put them on the plate... we added a strawberry stem and off we went!! They enjoyed it and it meant seconds for some that never ask for seconds on oranges.

Some Happy Faces!!!

A Busy Week

A Busy Week we had... we did many different things. I am amazed at all we do. When I go through the photos for the week, I am amazed at the things we do and what I get on camera. I then have the fun of going through them and deciding what to put on my blog and which ones to send to each family in a Smilebox.

This week we finished up our Community Theme. We learned about Group Games with our After-School Helper, she taught the kids Red Light, Green Light, Simon Says, & Duck, Duck, Goose. They had such a fun time!! The laughing and giggling was so much fun to watch!!

We also did some Halloween crafts. We did some marble painting spider webs, paper plate pumpkin, and construction paper black cats. They were a combination of Teacher Directed and Child Centered activities. I decided that after they were done with the craft themselves then they could explore with the the mediums all they wanted.

Simon Says

A new toy from Discount School Supplies!! We loved this toy too!!

Our Halloween Sensory Table... I got the idea from Chasing Cheerios... who got it from No Time For Flashcards!! Well, I would like to give a Huge Thank You to both of them because the kids Love it!! They absolutely Love It!! Thanks!!!